Guardians of the Galaxy

Early in the making of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” visual effects supervisor Stephane Ceretti invited a raccoon named Oreo to spend a few hours in his London office. He was looking for inspiration for one of the movie’s central characters, the mouthy wiseguy Rocket Raccoon, and the natural world seemed like a productive starting place. “They touch everything. They’re very tactile animals,” Ceretti recalled in a phone interview last week. “We spent a lot of time filming the way he moved so the animators could reference that. Even though it’s a raccoon that can walk and talk, we just want to make him look as present in the image as possible so people don’t question it.” Ceretti’s intensive study sessions paid off. “Guardians” is one of five films vying for the Oscar for outstanding visual effects at Sunday’s 87th […]

Of all the characters in Marvel’s groovy space romp “Guardians of the Galaxy,” an unexpected fan favorite might be Groot, a tree-like creature who somehow manages to be both adorable and deadly. With a five-word vocabulary and lethal fighting skills, Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) protects his partner Rocket (Bradley Cooper’s snarky gun-toting raccoon) and the rest of the Milano’s oddball crew while his own motivations remain mysterious. Hero Complex readers get a closer look at Groot’s character design in an exclusive clip from the bonus features on the “Guardians of the Galaxy” home video release, out Dec. 9. “Once we got the function right, then we started to refine the look of Groot and give him that ability to be both very innocent and very fearsome,” director James Gunn says in the clip. “And Vin came in … and his […]

New York Comic Con kicked off Thursday with an Adam West Batman tribute, a spotlight on “Doctor Who” actor Arthur Darvill and Disney’s previews of “Tomorrowland” and “Big Hero 6,” among other panels. The pop-culture expo, held at Manhattan’s Javits Center today through Sunday, is expected to draw some 130,000 fans for a four-day convention that has come to rival the West Coast’s Comic-Con International in San Diego. If your schedule for this weekend’s events is still up in the air, consider these must-see NYCC panels slated for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. FRIDAY TNT’S “The Librarians” 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., Empire Stage 1-E The upcoming series (based on the TV movies) follow a group of librarians on their adventures to protect mysterious, ancient artifacts. This panel features a sneak peek of the first episode, which premieres Dec. 7, and […]

If Marvel’s summer blockbuster “Guardians of the Galaxy” left you hooked on Blue Swede, you’re in luck. The sci-fi adventure’s hit soundtrack “Awesome Mix Vol. 1” is coming to vinyl in a deluxe, handmade packaging from Mondo, the the Alamo Drafthouse’s collectible art division. The Mondo album features screen-printed cover artwork from Tyler Stout, a record pressed on 180 Gram Purple Infinity Stone colored vinyl, and one of nine randomly inserted screen-printed handbills featuring characters from the film. Check out Stout’s vintage-inspired artwork in the gallery above. The oldies-dominated soundtrack, which plays a key role in the film’s plot, features the talents of David Bowie, the Jackson 5, the Runaways and more. The 12-track album topped the charts after the film’s release this summer. Check out the complete track listing below. Hooked on a Feeling – Blue Swede Go All the […]

Is Marvel so successful that it can do no wrong in the eyes of moviegoers? Maybe, according to “Saturday Night Live.” In the show’s premiere this weekend, “Guardians of the Galaxy” star Chris Pratt joined the “SNL” cast in a satirical trailer poking fun at Marvel’s ever-expanding roster of superhero films and their apparent box-office invincibility. The faux trailer begins with images from “Guardians,” which has earned some $644 million at the worldwide box office, and a voice-over explaining that, after the success of a film based on “a super-obscure comic book” and the hype surrounding the studio’s eagerly anticipated “Ant-Man” (“It’s about a guy who talks to ants. What? Yeah!”), Marvel doesn’t need comic books anymore. “We made a superhero team by pointing at a bunch of random words in the dictionary,” the trailer deadpans, introducing “Creatures of the […]

“Guardians of the Galaxy” opened in theaters Aug. 1 to become Marvel’s latest success — the quirky cosmic adventure is closing in on more than $200 million in domestic box office, and a sequel is already on the calendars for July 28, 2017. While audiences responded to the film’s wild menagerie of creatures and interstellar locales, many shared a favorite moment. The scene in question takes place at the end of the movie and involves Groot, the sentient tree voiced by Vin Diesel, one of the five members of the “Guardians” team that also includes Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord; Zoe Saldana’s green assassin, Gamora; Dave Bautista’s vengeful Drax the Destroyer; and Groot’s pal Rocket, a machine-gun-wielding raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper. Check it out below — unless, of course, you haven’t yet seen “Guardians,” in which case you […]

Want to know what it would be like to take a ride in Peter Quill’s spaceship, the Milano? Well now you can, courtesy of a new clip that sees “Guardians of the Galaxy” star Chris Pratt offer a guided tour of the vessel, which of course is piloted by his Marvel alter ego, the troublemaker better known to some corners of the universe as Star-Lord. With its wild menagerie of creatures and interstellar locales, “Guardians” dazzled moviegoers in its opening weekend, raking in more than $94 million at the box office to become the latest in a string of outsized hits for Marvel Studios. Directed by James Gunn and rooted in a 2008 comic book series written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, the $170-million film is the first installment in a new franchise; “Guardians 2” is set to arrive […]

Vin Diesel is behind the wheel on the Burbank lot of Walt Disney Studios. But instead of one of the Mopar classics or souped-up Mazdas that helped shape his gruff and intimidating persona in the wildly popular “Fast and Furious” movies, the actor is in a very different kind of vehicle. He is piloting a golf cart. “The pressure is on!” Diesel jokes, as he maneuvers the cart along a paved path at just a few miles per hour. An ill-timed crash would surely ruin his hard-charging reputation. Diesel’s latest movie, the cosmic adventure “Guardians of the Galaxy,” is yet another kind of vehicle for the actor, one with similar risks for his reputation. Though he’s noted for his tough-guy exterior, the actor’s brawny physique is never glimpsed on screen. Only his voice can be heard in his role as […]

Rarely is there an upside for an actor to have his character killed off one of the most popular series on television. But when Michael Rooker received the news that his role as Merle Dixon on AMC’s hit zombie series “The Walking Dead” was coming to an end, he took some comfort in knowing that another opportunity was waiting in the wings. The popular character actor has a pivotal role in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Marvel’s epic space adventure that arrives in theaters Friday, playing Yondu, a bandit who is something of a mentor to Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord. “Yondu is a responder, he’s a doer,” Rooker said recently. “He’s the leader of a group of interstellar piracy-type guys and a very paternal figure for Peter Quill. He’s his kid pretty much and he taught him how to […]

“Guardians of the Galaxy” takes audiences on a cosmic carpet ride into the farthest reaches of the Marvel universe, with its story of an unlikely team of interstellar heroes who band together to stop a supervillain from achieving his genocidal aims. But for Zoe Saldana, who plays the resourceful assassin Gamora — known in comic book lore as the most dangerous woman in the galaxy — the role was one rooted in earthbound inspiration. The former dancer developed the character’s physicality after watching footage of a bullfighter and deciding that she should move gracefully, with elegant precision. Grappling with the trauma of Gamora’s past, however, led Saldana in another direction. The green-skinned alien is the last surviving member of her race, an orphan who was trained to be lethal by her adopted father Thanos (Josh Brolin), and her plight reminded […]